Self-Denial: A New Testament View

In Mark 8:34 and parallels Jesus challenges his disciples to “deny themselves.” The concept of “denying the self” seems to be unique to Jesus, for this saying is never quoted or referred to in the New Testament outside the Gospels. What did Jesus mean? What is the “self” or the aspects of the self that must be denied? What would such a denial entail? Can we find similar concepts in Paul’s letters? This book examines the self-denial passages in the Gospels and then investigates how this theme is expressed in many other books of the New Testament.

Stuart T. Rochester is an Extraordinary Senior Lecturer in the Unit for Reformed Theology at North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa, and a tutor for Greenwich School of Theology, UK. He regularly teaches intensive courses in New Testament at several theological schools in Asia, Africa, and Europe. He has degrees in New Testament from Regent College, Vancouver, and Durham University, UK. He is the author of Good News at Gerasa: Transformative Discourse and Theological Anthropology in Mark's Gospel (2011).